The Gunman
Directed by: Pierre Morel
Written by: Don MacPherson, Pete Travis, Sean Penn
Starring: Sean Penn, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, Jasmine Trinca, Peter Franzén, Javier Bardem
Action/Drama - 115 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 19 Mar 2015
Written by: Don MacPherson, Pete Travis, Sean Penn
Starring: Sean Penn, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, Jasmine Trinca, Peter Franzén, Javier Bardem
Action/Drama - 115 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 19 Mar 2015
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DROC) usually only shows up on film in documentaries about war, massacres (both human and gorilla), exploitation, and any other calamity you can name. Now, it is part of the setting for an action/thriller brought to you by Pierre Morel (the director of Taken) and his Liam Neeson replacement, a seriously in shape Sean Penn. How do we know The Gunman is from the director of Taken? The movie poster and previews practically scream it. This is the ad exec’s way of selling a movie which cannot quite stand on its own, remind the ticket buyers of a previous movie they liked.
Penn helped write the script about a war-ravaged state under siege from scheming outside multi-national corporations and evil inside corrupt politicians and warlords. The DROC should still be front-page news considering millions of its citizens have been brutally raped and murdered and its vast mineral wealth plundered. Unfortunately, the DROC sets up a man against the world/man on a mission plot where it has the temerity of (SPOILER ALERT!) staging its climax at a Spanish bullfighting stadium where the bad guy gets his by being gored to death by a bull. Bullshit.
Penn helped write the script about a war-ravaged state under siege from scheming outside multi-national corporations and evil inside corrupt politicians and warlords. The DROC should still be front-page news considering millions of its citizens have been brutally raped and murdered and its vast mineral wealth plundered. Unfortunately, the DROC sets up a man against the world/man on a mission plot where it has the temerity of (SPOILER ALERT!) staging its climax at a Spanish bullfighting stadium where the bad guy gets his by being gored to death by a bull. Bullshit.
Sporting the reliably forgettable and mouth-breathing title, The Gunman, Taken goes to Africa lacks subtlety. If a guy is the only person in the room not smiling and just stares at the happy couple making kissy faces at one another, he’s a bad guy. At least we get to travel. Once we escape the DROC, we have the pleasure of hanging out in cosmopolitan, crisp London and sun-drenched, siesta-feeling Barcelona. At least The Gunman used its travel budget effectively.
There are no spring chickens here. Both our heroes and villains carry the gravelly voices of 30-year veteran smokers. Everyone was already well into their 40s in the beginning and after a stated eight year time lapse, we’re pushing retirement now. Jim Terrier (Penn, 2013’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) digs wells in the DROC attempting to atone for a lifetime of mortal sins. A pickup truck full of local hired guns show up looking to kill the “white man” but Jim didn’t forget how to fight during his eight year sabbatical. The bad guys also provide Jim the standard, nebulous mission, who is trying to kill me and why?
Tracking down his old team and stumbling across his old French girlfriend, Annie (Jasmine Trinca), the game is afoot. Yet, Jim must fight and kill with a figurative hand tied behind his back. Stressful situations, which comprise about 97% of his day, cause old brain concussions to flare up leading to awkward-timed blackouts and seizures. His condition must be the embodiment of Joe’s diagnosed brain cloud from Joe Versus the Volcano (1990). The brain cloud thing is merely a mechanism not to make it too easy for Jim to kill an entire house full of machine gun toting mercenaries. It is also much too obvious and ridiculous to file under anyplace else other than ‘unnecessary’.
Audiences associate Sean Penn with sympathetic characters with tragic endings. His characters in Dead Man Walking and Milk are larger than life portrayals etched into the Hollywood canon. He was also Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, one of stoner cinema’s all time heroes. Why make the jump so late in his career to action hero? Is Liam Neeson’s “I’m getting too old for this” shtick so influential it drew in one of Hollywood’s most talented and A-List actors? The Gunman does not require an AARP-eligible actor to carry the story. The filmmakers chose to do that I can only guess to mooch off the success of the Taken franchise.
The Gunman is a restricted range narration. We do not know more than Jim about who is trying to kill him. Sure, we can guess, and will most likely be correct, but at least The Gunman maintains an effective amount of tension as Jim works his way through the clues, most of the time through firearms and explosives. In its own clumsy way, The Gunman is also a message movie about callous global corporations and their destructive methods in the third world. Focusing on the bottom line at the expense of humanitarian infractions and the side effects of assassinations will ensure countries like the DROC will remain mired in strife and misery for the foreseeable future.
Sean Penn is a convincing action/shoot-em-up gunslinger. Unfortunately, he’s saddled with a brain cloud disease that is anything but believable. His script also folds in on itself in the second half forgetting its fresh setup in the DROC and ending with pissed off bulls impaling villains in the chest. If the writers were strong enough to write a second half as effective as they wrote the first, The Gunman would be one of the better action/suspense movies in awhile. However, they didn’t. Therefore, The Gunman will join the pile of recent action leftovers nobody will remember a year from now.
Sean Penn is a convincing action/shoot-em-up gunslinger. Unfortunately, he’s saddled with a brain cloud disease that is anything but believable. His script also folds in on itself in the second half forgetting its fresh setup in the DROC and ending with pissed off bulls impaling villains in the chest. If the writers were strong enough to write a second half as effective as they wrote the first, The Gunman would be one of the better action/suspense movies in awhile. However, they didn’t. Therefore, The Gunman will join the pile of recent action leftovers nobody will remember a year from now.
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